A/N: It feels like every part of me is exhausted right now. I was going to run a few errands around lunchtime before settling in to read and play Fire Emblem, but then Mum and I decided we'd try to finish Christmas and grocery shopping as well, and, well, several hours later… Ugh, we are so not shoppers. Especially at the height of summer. The only thing that got us through was that we didn't want to have to go out again anytime soon.
The conversation feels much less stilted as they make their way back outside to join the others half an hour later, both smiling in appreciation of the fact that something is starting to go their way again.
"All of it?" she repeats incredulously.
"Yeah. He just shoved it all in his mouth and, when we caught up to him on the street, tried to convince us he hadn't shoplifted."
"But you obviously caught him."
"It wasn't that hard," he says, "given that whatever he put in there wasn't supposed to be ingested. He ended up turning bright green and breaking out in these weird lump things."
"Oh my goodness." Wiping her eyes with her hands as she fights back laughter, she asks, "How long did it take for it to go back down?"
"Ten minutes. Fred could have fixed it sooner, but he refused to do it until the boy admitted that he had been stealing. 'After all,' he said, 'it isn't our responsibility to do anything if you have a harmless reaction to something outside our shop. It's not like any of our products caused it, right? You didn't buy anything, so you couldn't have had anything on you at the time.' The kid only confessed when Fred and I started heading back inside and he realised we weren't joking about leaving him like that. Fred fixed him right up and then made him pay for what he'd eaten."
"That's sort of brilliant, actually. Ruthless, but…"
"That's Fred, alright."
Her gaze automatically flicks over to where Fred and George are lounging around on the grass with Victoire and Teddy. The children are laughing in blissful amusement, but the twins seem much tenser than she is used to seeing them.
"Either way, though, he won't be coming back," Ron continues. "George has added his magical signature to the list of people who can't enter, so his only option from now on will be mail order."
"You should see if you can adjust your protective charms to detect when someone's trying to leave without paying," she suggests as she, smiling fondly, watches Fred hold a happily squealing Victoire upside down. "Muggles have a piece of technology attached to the product that will beep if it isn't switched off before leaving the store. I'm not sure how it would work with magic, though, unless you cast some sort of wailing charm over everything and then cast the counter-spell on each item as they're bought."
As she turns back to Ron, she notices him watching her with a peculiar expression on his face.
"What?" she asks.
"It's nothing." After a beat, he adds, "Honestly."
Awkwardness settles back over them again like a shadow that can't be shaken; it feels like, no matter how many times they manage to hide from it, it will always come back when they step into the light once more.
"And there it is," he notes. "We're bad at this, aren't we?"
"At least we're a bit better at it than we were yesterday."
"I guess."
"Hermione!" George's voice cuts in. Looking over at him, she sees him jump to his feet and run across the grass to meet them. "I have some business ideas I want your opinion on. Come for a walk with me?"
Relieved at the interruption, she eagerly replies, "Of course. I'd love to help. Talk to you later, Ron."
"Yeah, you too."
George, for some reason, refuses to start talking until they've put some distance between them and the rest of the group. Only when they are in a fairly secluded area does he admit, "I don't actually need your help. You and Ron just looked like you both wanted to escape, so I thought I'd step in."
"Thanks. It did get a bit awkward there towards the end."
"Only towards the end?" he asks, but the amusement tinging his voice seems uncharacteristically forced.
Suspicion niggles at the back of her brain. George can be considerate when the situation calls for it, but she senses an ulterior motive lurking below the surface of his questions. She doesn't know when it will rise up like a shark to strike, but she's determined to fish it out of the water before it can surprise her. "It was good for the most part," she replies, peering at him out of the corner of her eye. "We got the chance to talk properly, which was nice."
"Sounds like it." He seems to be struggling to word something, which only furthers her certainty that the thing he doesn't want her to know about is preparing to strike. After a few moments, he appears to give up.
"It's been a long time since we've really talked," she continues, attaching a single wriggling worm to her fishing rod in the hope that it will be effective enough bait. "In the months leading up to our break up, we always seemed to be talking around one another. For a while there, while we were in the kitchen, it was like we were back to how it was before."
"Before?" he repeats. Quickly, he blurts out, "Are you thinking about getting back together, then?"
There. That's his ulterior motive, she thinks. But why? Surely he knows them both well enough to know that neither of them would put themselves in that situation again. Unless he's worried they would and merely wants to gently redirect them before they make things worse for themselves? It's misguided, but it would make sense if he were looking out for his brother… "No," she says – and, for all of his pranking and acting skills, he visibly relaxes at the words. "We both just want to be friends again."
"Good," he replies. "I think it's better for both of you that way."
"Right," she says, scepticism lacing her tone. Glancing back at the far-off gathering, she decides that she would far rather awkwardly dance around a conversation with Ron than continue trying to make sense of George Weasley's sudden bout of slyness. "I'm going to head back now. Are you coming?"